Qualitative Sociology, Vol. 20, No.

1, 1997
Grounding Visual Sociology Research In
Shooting Scripts1
Charles S. Suchar
This essay presents a method for integrating visual representations of social
and cultural realities into sociological analysis. It unites strategies of
documentary photography with those of grounded theory-based field research
and demonstrates the consonant interactionist and interrogatory stance of the
visual sociologist. The documentary photographic method of using "shooting
scripts" to structure the visual field project is shown to have a complementary
relationship to a grounded theory method, and both, together, offer the visual
sociologist a structured way of initiating and sustaining photographic field work.
INTRODUCTION
The limited literature in visual sociology and visual anthropology sug-
gests general field strategies, but lacks a detailed guide to using photo-
graphs as data in ethnographic field work.2 Consequently, sociologists and
documentary photographers working with visual topics have usually been
forced to improvise appropriate research procedures and use "ad hoc"
methods. Often, completed projects are presented with scant mention of
how such methods were arrived at. As a result, specific techniques for
teaching or doing visual sociology remain unrecorded and newcomers to
the field have little guidance in how to do visual sociology.
In this paper, I draw from my own work to demonstrate procedures
and approaches that I have found most productive as a field strategy for
visual sociology. This method was refined during three years of study con-
Direct correspondence to Charles S. Suchar, DePaul University, Department of Sociology,
Chicago, IL 60614.
KEY WORDS: grounded theory; documentary photography; shooting scripts.
33
C 1997 Human Sciences Press, Inc.
carning neighborhood change and gentrification in Chicago. Throughout
the paper, I refer to this project to illustrate my methodological framework
(Suchar 1988, 1992, 1994).
THE INTERROGATORY PRINCIPLE
Taking suggestions from statements by Becker (1974, 1978), Barthes
(1981) and Berger (1932), I believe that the photography's documentary
potential is not inherent in photographs, but rather lies in an interactive
process whereby photographs are used as a way of answering or expanding
on questions about a particular subject. I call this the interrogatory prin-
ciple of documentary photography: "A photograph is documentary to the
extent to which information within it can be argued as putative facts that
are answers to particular questions" (Suchar 1989:52). This process of ask-
ing and answering questionsbased on field observations or archival re-
search, and engaging in a discovery processis an essential characteristic
of the meaning of documentary. My belief in the implications of the inter-
rogatory principle led me to search for methodological procedures conso-
nant with it.
In reviewing the literature and my own work, 1 found that two methods
commonly used by visual social scientistsphoto-elicitation and the use of
shooting scriptswere popular and successful precisely because they offered
particular ways in which photography could embody the interrogatory prin-
ciple. Photo-elicitation is a method of using photographs to guide interviews
and ask questions about social, cultural, and behavioral realities (Harper
1987; Collier and Collier 1986; Curry and Clark 1977). Shooting scripts are
lists of research topics or questions which can be examined via photographic
information (Rothstein 1989; Collier and Collier 1986). They provide a
means by which photography can be grounded in a strategic and focused
exploration of answers to particular theoretically-generated questions (Gold
1994).3 While I have used photo elicitation extensively in my own research,
for the purposes of this paper, I focus on shooting scripts as a basic approach
for collecting photographic data (See Suchar 1992; 1994).
PHOTOGRAPHIC SEEING AND VISUAL SOCIOLOGY
I am convinced that what we call "seeing" in visual sociology is a 'func-
tion of our ability to find patterns in our photographic data. Many of us
34 Suchar
have examined a particularly successful set of photographs from a field
setting and have been overwhelmed by the quality of information contained
therein. Even casual scrutiny of such work may bring on the accolade of
"this photographer has really seen through to the 'essential' nature of a
particular subject or issue". In this way, seeing involves the ability to reveal
patterns, features or details in a research setting or topicsuch as aspects
of material culture, subjects' characteristics or behavior, etc.that are not
readily apparent in less acute observations of that reality.
In order to best utilize the kind of information available in visual docu-
mentation, we need a systematic means to bring this kind of insight into
sociological analysis. However, as Becker (1974), Gold (1995a) and others
have commented, seldom is there as rigorous and systematic an analysis of
photographic images as there is of non-photographic field data. This de-
preciates the potential documentary value of photographic data. Seeing is
thus largely a latent quality; it needs to be enhanced, developed, extracted,
and given greater acuity through a rigorous application of methodology and
the systematic interaction of the analyst with the data. By these comments,
I do not mean to divorce seeing from its aesthetically rooted manifestation
in the visual arts. Seeing also has much to do with a kind of vision that
reveals form, pattern, essential nature, and underlying organization of the
observed (and in art, imagined) world. Rather, I seek a field strategy or
method that allows us to see patterns in our photographs, and permits us
to create photographic records that can be used for social analysis. In my
own field work, I have found that combining the use of shooting scripts
with the procedures of grounded theory helps me to see and analyze pat-
terns in photographic data (Glaser and Strauss 1967; Schatzman and
Strauss 1973; Glaser 1978; Charmaz 1983; Strauss 1987; Strauss and Corbin
1990; Glaser 1992).
Shooting scripts work as guides for photographic and sociological see-
ing. Not only do they help structure daily field work and photography, but
further, provide the flexibility needed for a sociological discovery process
that draws from field observations to visually ground abstractive and con-
ceptual development (Suchar 1989; Gold 1994). The process of constructing
and reconstructing shooting scripts, based on daily field experience, allows
for a strategic organization of field photography in order to establish a
base of photographic information. From this, analysis, conceptualization,
and further field work can proceed. This, in turn, permits the field worker
to become more sensitive to the recognition of patterns and therefore, en-
hances seeing.
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts 35
SHOOTING SCRIPTS
Shooting scripts are a series of questions about the subject matter 01
a photo documentary project. The most famous use of shooting scripts
was by Roy E. Stryker's Farm Security Administration (FSA) photographic
staff during the 1930s and 1940s. While the FSA photographersincluding
Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange and Arthur Rothsteinhad some diffi-
culty using the scripts, they managed to follow them for at least some
portion of their assignments. Arguably, shooting scripts deserve credit or
making the FSA one of the most important visual studies of society ever
undertaken. What is not so well known is that Columbia University soci-
ologist Robert Lynd of Middletown fame, was the initiator of the FSA
shooting scripts (Hurley 1972; Rothstein 1986; Stange 1989). So, the so-
ciological origins of shooting scripts for documentary photography are
clear. Specifically, the shooting scripts for documenting small town Amer-
ica included such general questions as "Where can people meet?", "Do
women have as many meeting places as men?", "How do people look?",
"How much different do people look and act when they are on the job
than when they are off?", "How do the homes look inside and outside?",
etc. (Rothstein 1986:163-168).
While evolving out of the shooting scripts used by documentary pho-
tographers and photojournalists, those used by visual sociologists and an-
thropologists have different purposes. Explicitly linked to social theories,
they can be structured according to the parameters of a grounded theo-
retical discovery process. In fact, it is the close affinity with grounded theory
field methods that makes the shooting script an ideal means for integrating
photographic data collection with sociological field work. Both shooting
scripts and grounded theory rely on a common conceptual feature: the crea-
tion of categories for the collection, organization and analysis of observa-
tional data. In The Discovery of Grounded Theory (1967:23), Glaser and
Strauss posit "In discovering theory, one generates conceptual categories
or their properties from evidence; then the evidence from which the cate-
gory emerged is used to illustrate the concept" Similarly, shooting scripts
involve the creation of a series of categories of photographic evidence to
be collected and questions to be explored. Hence, these two tools are well
suited for each other. Combined, they offer a means of organizing and
interpreting the rich and complex amalgam of data visual sociologists en-
counter when in the field. In this essay, I offer a general model of working
with a shooting script/grounded theory approach and suggest the possible
conceptual outcomes of such a process of photographic engagement
36 Suchar
A GROUNDED THEORY APPROACH TO USING
SHOOTING SCRIPTS
Establishing an Initial Shooting Script
Most field workers know at least something about their subject matter
before entering the field. The total suspension of judgment and under-
standing in favor of pure induction is difficult to achieve in any case, so
we usually begin the photographic field project with initial working hunches
and theories about our subject matter. This is important, because our gen-
eral understandings allow us to frame general questions for which we will
try to obtain photographic answers.
In my study of a community undergoing gentrification, I was specifi-
cally interested in the effect of commercial changes on the physical, cul-
tural, and social class transformation that were taking place. My initial
shooting script, which involved doing a photographic inventory of shops
and commercial establishments along the major market strip areas in the
community, contained the following questions:
1. What variety of stores or businesses are to be found in different
market strips, located in different areas of the community?
2. What do they sell or what services do they provide?
3. Who are the customers or clients who are served by these estab-
lishments? Are they locals or people from outside the neighbor-
hood?
4. Who works, owns, or manages these establishments?
Logging/Writing Descriptive Narratives/Open Coding
I worked with this initial shooting script for several months. For each
question, I shot several rolls of film to provide "answers" or "responses"
to the questions asked. At the same tune, drawing from my daily observa-
tions, I wrote descriptive field notes. Based on this experience, I suggest
that for each roll of film, the following procedures be followed:
1. The film is processed/contact sheets are made for each roll;
2. a logging procedure is followed: a descriptive narrative is written
for each significant frame identifying the way in which the frame is
a response to the shooting script question(s).4 This account is en-
tered in a "logging book" or into a word processing file.5 Initial
interpretations of the meaning or significance of visual repre-
sentations can be made at this point;
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts 37
3. labels or names are attached to each descriptive narrative. This is
a most important procedure and is referred to in the grounded the-
ory literature as open coding (Glaser 1978:56-61; Strauss and Cor-
bin 1990:61).
I found that it was essential to begin generating conceptual under-
standings of the content and meaning of the images that come back from
the field. The logging of frames on the contact sheet puts the contents of
the photograph into words and indicates how the photograph might be a
response relevant to the shooting script questions. As in the following ex-
ample, I typically wrote a paragraph or two description of the contents of
the image in my log, with provisional notes on how the image responds to
the question:
This is a foodstore in the neighborhood that has been here for some time and
seems to serve a local clientele. The store sells groceries to small number of clients
and given that some of the signs in the windows are in Spanish, seems to be serving
an indigenous group still present in the community, despite the rapid move toward
gentrification [and so on]. The prices for products in the store are not inexpensive.
The supermarket down the street seems to undersell some of these same products
and therefore the vitality of this store is a question that comes to mind. Who still
shops in this store? Need to interview the manager or owner about the competition
with other shops.
The next step in the process is identifying concepts or categories in
the photograph, or what Strauss and Corbin (1990:61) call "open coding:"
"The process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing,
and categorizing data." This is essentially a labeling process, whereby the
descriptive and interpretive material from my photographs were summa-
rized as useable and "retrievable-for-comparative-purposes" units of infor-
mation. I gave each photograph several labels, allowing it to be used as an
answer to different shooting script questions, or illustrating different char-
acteristics of the subject.
As Charmaz (1983:112) indicates, this categorizing process does not
merely involve the assignment of subject headings or topics to data. Rather,
it is also a way of refining concepts: "[r]esearchers use codes to pull to-
gether and categorize a series of otherwise discrete events, statements, and
observations which they identify in the data. Researchers make the codes
fit the data, rather than forcing the data into codes. By doing so, they gain
a clearer rendering of the materials and greater accuracy." The narrative
logging statement above, for example, was given the label "Local-Client
Service Store". It was also coded as "Ethnic Economic Stability".
The assignment of codes establishes the means by which I was able
to compare images and attached descriptions on a whole variety of topics.
I compared examples of "Local-Client Service Stores" to each other and
38 Suchar
examined the visual and narrative representations for each: I considered
similarities and differences between them as recorded in both images and
descriptions. I also compared between categories, asking how the photo-
graphs and descriptions of "Local-Client Service Stores" square with those
of "Stores for Tourists" or "Youth-Centered/Oriented Stores?" I evaluated
storefronts, advertisements, and customers associated with each type of
store. Finally, I assessed the racial, social class, and gender characteristics
of each type of stores' workers and clientele.
These comparisons generated new categories (axial codes), concepts,
and theoretical understandings. It is important to stress that the assignment
of labels to the photographs and their attached narrative explanations is
not just organizational. It also has the function of raising questions about
the subject matter. The application of grounded theory that I am proposing
here revolves around the writing of descriptive narratives guided by shoot-
ing script questions. The resulting narratives are then coded for their mul-
tiple summative meanings. These codes can be refined as the field
photography and project develop. Consequently, the initial coding will give
way to more focused coding in later stages (Charmaz 1983; Glaser 1978).
Do Shooting Scripts Introduce Bias?
Followers of the grounded theory method may wonder if the pre-de-
termined topics of the shooting script limit the conceptual development or
inductive process of discovery, thus inducing a bias at an early stage (Glaser
1992). I do not believe so. The process of interrogating images and exam-
ining field notes provides a means of intellectually interacting with docu-
mented observations. This is a creative and thought-provoking process. We
can also "check" our interpretations against other data, including our ob-
served subjects' interpretations, to reduce script-based bias (in vivo coding,
Charmaz 1983:116; Strauss 1987:33-34). The hunches, speculations, and in-
sights that come out of this process help us to take new directions in our
field research. Most significantly, they help us to reformulate the photo-
graphic shooting script.
Reformulating the Shooting Script
At the completion of a coding session, I review the provisional labels,
codes and attached narratives and ask the following basic questions: What
possible answers to this question have yet to be explored? What other ques-
tions do these answers raise? Inevitably, new leads to answering original
question arise and some new questions, either more focused than the first
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts 39
or perhaps wholly different, direct the project to the next stage of photo-
graphic field work. Finally, it may be that the original questions asked in
the script are still in need of more detailed photographic answers. I then
revise the shooting script according to the grounded theoretical analysis in
order to accommodate these questions.
These procedures, I believe, not only underscore the flexible character
of the shooting script, but also characterize the entire photographic field
process as an interactive and conceptually-based enterprise. The emerging
conceptual model through the open coding and basic photographic logging-
in technique is grounded in what might be termed a "thickening-descrip-
tive" observational process guided by the shooting script. The accumulating
narrative accounts, codes, and the visual representations become the basis
for further comparative analysis.
Focused Coding
Channaz (1983:116-120), Strauss (1987:64-68) and Strauss and Corbin
(1990:96-142) define the next phases in grounded theory research as "axial"
or "focused" coding. Axial coding is "a set of procedures whereby data are
put back together in new ways after open coding, by making connections
between categories." Such coding leads to a "process of selecting the core
category, systematically relating it to other categories, validating those re-
lationships, and filling in categories that need further refinement and de-
velopment" (Strauss and Corbin 1990:116).
In the process of comparing images and related narratives across coded
categories, and thus engaging in a "constant comparative process", the
grounded theory method encourages the writing of analytical or theoretical
memos. These are used to integrate the descriptive and analytic interpre-
tations of visual data into more abstract conceptual understandings and
statements. The resulting analytic memos can also direct us to return to
the field in order to collect additional photographic data through theoreti-
cal sampling "sampling aimed toward the development of the emerging the-
ory" (Charmaz 1983: 124). This is the embodiment of the "interrogatory
stance" in visual documentary work.
AN EXAMPLE: STYLES OF GENTRIFICATION
It would take far too long to explain all the particulars of my coding
procedures in this essay, but it is important to take a brief look at the way
in which photographic data, attendant word narratives, and open coded
40 Suchar
categories are used in an integrated fashion to generate new conceptual
understandings.
In the first phase of my study of gentrification, lasting over a year, I
photographed the material cultural changes to property in the community.
Using a shooting script that focused questions on the nature of the reno-
vations to property (i.c. additions to the fronts and backs of houses, the
meaning of art work on front lawns, the significance of walls and gates
erected around rehabed or renovated houses, the incorporation of "an-
tique" features such as added stained glass, coach lamps, carved wooden
doors, animal, religious, and mythological icons) I was able to generate
dozens upon dozens of photographs. That is, I had dozens of photographs
of animal icons, dozens of photographs of stylized "Victorian" changes to
the fronts of houses, dozens upon dozens of photographs of art work on
lawns and walls and security gates and fences around houses.
I came to realize that I had the photographic and narrative data for
a comparative examination of the stylistic quality of physical transforma-
tions to property. I assumed that these changes revealed deeper values held
by Lincoln Park residents. Some values were related to social class differ-
ences in the community, some were age differentiated, but all revealed ma-
terial cultural considerations that served to distinguish groups of residents
in what was becoming, clearly, a more heterogeneous neighborhood than
I, or the literature on gentrification, would have predicted. How did I find
patterns in these data?
I subjected the various images with attached narratives to the open-
coding process described briefly above, gave the images provisional labels,
and began comparing categories as suggested by grounded theory. This
comparative analysis began to generate a number of insights about the ico-
nography of gentrification. By examining my narrative characterizations of
the images, I began to identify particular value sets embedded in the pres-
entation of material culture. One value set that I discovered through ex-
amining photos was "urban romanticism." (At a later stage in the project,
I further specified the urban romantic outlook via photo-elicitation inter-
views and environmental portrait photographs completed with 50 families
in the neighborhood).
URBAN ROMANTIC CHARACTERISTICS
Urban romantics perceived their neighborhoods as combining the best
of the "old city neighborhoods" (a friendly, quaint, "village-like" place
where gemeinschaft relationships were still to be found) and the "new city
neighborhood" (the youthful, with-it, exciting place of entertainment, chic
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts 41
42 Suchar
shops, and contemporary and pop urban culture). The urban romantic con-
cept was reflected in the "Victorian" sense of style to rehabed and reno-
vated house exteriors. It could also be seen in a number of other
photographic series depicting such themes as animal iconography and art
work as exterior embellishments to property.
Victorian Styled Housing Exteriors
Figures 1 through 3 illustrate various characteristics of one dimension
of the urban romantic value set.6 The maintenance or construction of house
facades to reflect a "'Victorian" sense of style includes such details as multi-
Fig. 1. Victorian styled housing exteriors.
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts
43
colored exterior painting and elaborate metal work on fences, doorways,
and porches as seen in Figure 1. The carved, wooden door, coachlamp,
and stained glass "#271" depicted in Figure 2 are all non-original additions
to this particular house. Figure 3 reveals a house with wrought-iron gates,
an ornamental griffin and a park bench (well-secured to the gate). The
combination of animal icon, wrought-iron and ivy reflect one interpretation
of the Victorian sense of style and taste frequently seen in house renovation
and decoration in Lincoln Park. The following is a sample of the narrative
descriptions given to this coded sub-category:
Figure 1:
1836 N. Lincoln Park West. This house reflects the stately elegance of restored and
renovated woodframe, stone, and brick houses in the Old Town Triangle Area. The
pennant in the window signifies membership in the local neighborhood association.
Restoration and renovation often reflect differences in stylistic preferences,
philosophies of lifestyle, architectural sophistication and economic means as well
as the availability of materials and services. Certain restorations and renovations
Fig. 2. Victorian styled housing exteriors.
44 Suchar
Fig. 3. Victorian styled housing exteriors.
establish interpretations of achievable changes to property and are used by others
as basis for further transformation. The custom paint job on this house, the fancy
wooden jigsaw cut piece over the doorway and ornate wrought-iron gate and
ornamental piece over the front porch are illustrative of what residents have called
a Victorian "look" or "style". (Variably coded as "Houses-Woodframed, Special
Decoration")
Animal Iconography
Figures 4 and 5 reflect one additional and extremely common feature
seen to grace the fronts of many houses in the neighborhood. Dogs along
with cats, birds, and lions are among the growing menagerie of plaster,
concrete, and stone animal icons that were commonly seen in the neigh-
borhood. Perhaps they reflect an affinity for particular animals and pets,
but one cannot help but see the heraldic symbols that were also repre-
sented. The ubiquitous lion, whether singular or in matched sets, painted
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts 45
Fig. 4. Animal iconography.
or left unadorned, assumes the status marking functions that were formerly
reserved for the nobility and taken over by the gentry of the upper-middle
class. My contact sheets included dozens upon dozens of images of different
animal statuary. Subsequent interviews with residents particularly con-
firmed the patterning evident in my field photography and the comparative
examination of coded narrative statements. An example of the narrative
description to photographs in this coded sub-category of "animal iconog-
raphy" included the following:
Figure 4:
While lions are the most commonly found examples of animal statuary, dogs and
cat statues follow behind. This dog statue in the Wrightwood neighborhood of
Lincoln Park is an example of the growing menagerie of concrete, plaster, and stone
animal icons. I have seen this particular statue on sale at two establishments in the
areaon Halsted St and Lincoln Ave.(both plant and gardening centers), it is
not unique. As noticed in other instances, does this cany some heraldic meaning,
the memory of a beloved lost pet, a current one? ...Not sure.. (Variably coded as
"Exterior Art Work")
46 Suchar
Fig. 5. Animal iconography.
Exterior Art Work
Another dimension of this urban romantic aesthetic was the penchant
for the display of other forms of art work at the front or back of houses.
Classical statuary and decorations, commissioned sculptures and murals as
depicted in Figures 6 and 7 were also commonly seen and photographed
during this early stage of the documentary project. The art work was par-
ticularly effective in establishing the feeling or atmosphere that one re-
spondent later described as "eclectica": a sense of style that combined
unusual art pieces in a setting with some degree of contrast (although stat-
ues of Venus are obviously not particularly unusual in and of themselves).
The photographs of these art pieces, revealed great concern for their place-
ment, arrangement, and the "statement" made about the premises and, os-
tensibly, the residents within. Again, later interviews confirmed many of
these more speculative "patterns" noticed during the early stages of the
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts
47
Fig. 6. Exterior artwork.
field photography. The following is a sample of an attached narrative to a
photograph from this coded category:
Figure 7:
I remember seeing this piece of artwork during the Sheffield Neighbors Garden
Walk (local festival/event) and came back the following Wednesday to photograph
it (with permission of the owner since it was in a private yard). This black and
white garage piece is very intricate and was commissioned by the owners and
executed by an artist friend of theirs. The owners were quite proud of this piece
and felt that it gave additional character to the rest of their landscaped backyard.
The coachlamp, black-painted garage door, plantings and art work, with exposed
brickwork on the ground and garage, were not unlike other decorative treatments
to the fronts and backs of houses in Lincoln Park. (Variably coded as "Sheffield
Garden Walk" and "Garden Art")
After a comparative analysis of the field photography within these
coded categories and between coded categories (e.g. "Victorian Styled
Housing", 'Animal Iconography", "Exterior Art Work") I began to write a
series of "analytical or theoretical memos" that tried to integrate the in-
sights and understandings that I had come to from examining this visual
and descriptive data. These were narratives that combined the many char-
acteristics already mentioned and tried to make some sense of the emergent
48 Suchar
Fig. 7. Exterior artwork.
theoretical significance of this information. For example, the following ana-
lytic memo was written early in this process and is a sample of the type
of interpretation that led, later, to the more focused theoretical concept
of "urban romantic":
Houses in Lincoln Park have interesting add-on or embellished features that speak
a Victorian sense of style. The addition of coach lights, carved wooden doors,
stained glass windows, ivy on the brick exteriors, among other things, are
characteristic of this urban romantic stylistic voice. The iconography of gentrification
develops as a language to communicate to others that a certain style and taste have
been assumed by the property owner or leasee. It becomes part of the presentation
of self, part of the communication of class culture and neighborhood identification.
Woven together are personal and social needs that reflect transformation of values
and resident characteristics. There are distinct recurring thematics to this sense of
style and taste. Wrought-iron gates, animal icons, classical and modem art work,
decorative park benches, fancy staircases, architectural parts of old buildings, and
so on, are commonly found. These are combined in many instances with an
"eclectic" look, as if they were part of a collection. This melange often has a main
piece that centers the display, such as a piece of art or an animal icon. The
symbolism of social class presentation is apparent in these status markers. The town
"gentry" have developed a readable set of symbols to communicate status
identification and presentation.
There are, no doubt, different ways of reading these visible samples
of material culture that raise some interesting and complex layers of mean-
ing regarding the relationship these people have to their built environment.
I realized that until I interviewed residents, I would not be able to under-
stand the meanings these physical things and viewable manifestations had
for members of the community. I was better prepared, however, to ask
very particular things of residents about the physical transformations that
were observable within the community.
After some debate about what to call this complex of characteristics,
I came to the conclusion that, above all, these features added up to a "ro-
mantic" and socially quite self-conscious set of attributes. "Urban Roman-
tic" seemed to me to be a way of summarizing this particular set of
attributes. I was later to find out that it also correlated with a particular
attitude set about the nature of the community and the residents identifi-
cation with that community.
Walls, Gates, and Fences
Finally, I would like to conclude with an example of how additional
dimensions of an idea or concept, different patterns, become noticeable
after continual sifting through the images and their narrative explanations.
Repeated viewings of contact sheets began to reveal a very noticeable add-
on feature to the renovations or rehabs to property: the addition of walls,
gates, and fences. I had photographed dozens of these. Their relationship
to the urban romantic concept became apparent only later.
What do these photographs of walls and gates and their physical pres-
ence reveal? After a comparative examination of the photographs, I came
to the not very surprising conclusion that a concern for privacy and security
were very apparent for members of this new urban gentry. An axial com-
parison across this and the other series above, however, raised some inter-
esting issues. The extension of private space by erecting gates, fences, and
walls, is a tradition of both the town and country gentry. The dual needs
of space and privacy with the added requirement of security, are extremely
modern urban themes. When juxtaposed with the "urban romantic" theme
it dramatizes a tension that exists between some resident's attitudes toward
living in this community. That tension is between wanting to live or expe-
rience the idealized gemeinschaft-like, old-fashioned "village-like" neigh-
borhood lifestyle (where neighborliness and close-proximate living is
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts 49
50 Suchar
deemed valuable), and the modem realities of wanting to keep others out,
at a distance, where one's own privacy, security, and additional need for
space are valued over these more traditional interests.
Figures 8 and 9 are examples of field photography of these walls, gates
and fences. They also reflect an aesthetic dimension that fits in very nicely
with the photography of the other material and physical manifestations and
characteristics discussed above. The following illustrates the attached nar-
rative descriptions for photographs in this coded sub-category:
Figures:
A version of junkyard/odds-and-ends artwork set to a pragmatic purpose: enclosing
a building's front space for private use by erecting a brick wall, but with definite
aesthetic statements being made. This wall at 655 W. Wrightwood is a relatively
new construction by the look of the brick and mortar. The wall is high enough to
completely close in the front yard which has been converted to a private patio. The
dual needs of increased space and privacy are, however, extremely modern urban
themes that one encounters in Lincoln Park. In this case, it offers the owners an
opportunity for communicating a little of their own unique creative abilities
(radiator parts and sea shells seen here) utilizing the interesting shapes of
Fig. 8. Walls, gates, and fences.
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts
51
Fig. 9. Walls, gates, and fences.
man-made and natural refuse. (Variably coded as "Exterior Art Work" and
"Material Presentation of Self")
Such patterns of information began to emerge and helped inform the
interviewing and analysis of the next stage of the research project: the pho-
tographic study and photo-elicitation interviewing of fifty residents and resi-
dent families in the community. The shooting scripts and consequent
photography helped generate some of the more significant initial concep-
tual categories that gave meaning to the importance of the material culture
and physical environment in understanding underlying values, beliefs, com-
munity identification, and resident behavior. The grounded theoretical ap-
proach that these shooting scripts allowed, helped concentrate and inte-
grate the photography and subsequent sociological analysis.
CONCLUSIONS
Howard Becker (1974 [1986]:245-250), in one of the most significant
statements of the relationship between documentary photography and so-
ciology, has pointed out that the practitioners of each discipline have much
to learn from the best techniques of the other. For example, the photog-
rapher can learn from the longer tune perspective of the sociological field
worker and the depth and intensiveness of the analysis of her/his ethno-
graphic description. On the other hand, the sociologist has much to gain
from the documentary photographer's intensive visual coverage and the
"get-to-the-visual-heart-of-the-story" nature of decisive images that capture
essential facets of the subject matter. Both the economy of work, acuity of
vision, and conceptual focus of resultant images is aided by the use of a
shooting script This essay has attempted to show the manner in which
these methods can be integrated by the sociologist who wishes to profit
from the best practices of both traditions.
This integration of the use of a shooting script and a grounded theory
approach for photographic field work has a strong degree of philosophical,
theoretical, and pragmatic unity. When documentary is seen as an inter-
rogatory and interactive process of asking questions of the observable world
and refining both the answers and further questioning of subject matter,
the approach outlined here offers a structured, systematic, and strategic
method for extracting meaning.
Furthermore, this integration of methods also allows for a synergy of
field strategies that relate conceptualization to particular observational ex-
periences. In many ways, this synergy is due to a grounding of very specific
visual information in the evolving conceptual understanding of subject mat-
ter. The field worker, through the shooting script and grounded theory ap-
proach, is able to be open to a flowing process of discovery, and also able
to organize these specific discoveries in a broader framework: a union of
specificity and creativity.
I also argue that the grounding of conceptualization in specific visual
referents qualitatively enhances the grounding process itself. I have found
that reference to very detailed visual documents, and the information they
contain, allows for a closer link between the abstractive process of concep-
tualizing and experientially derived observations. The photographs, I believe,
allow for a preciseness of recall which give the resultant conceptualizations
an enhanced richness of texture and detail. Grounded theorists need to se-
52 Suchar
riously consider the advantages that a shooting script and photography based
upon it have as complementary strategies in field work.
The combined use of shooting scripts and a grounded theory approach
is philosophically and pragmatically consonant with other methods used by
visual sociologists such as photo-elicitation interviewing. In fact, the
grounded theoretical analysis of the results of such interviewing in my study
of neighborhood change in Lincoln Park, allowed me to "triangulate" the
understanding and conceptual discoveries of the earlier photographic ex-
ploration of the community.
Finally, for those of us who teach documentary photography and visual
sociology methods, I suggest that this approach, when combined with train-
ing in other field methods and techniques, presents a systematic and struc-
tured way of initiating others into field research. It offers a viable
alternative to more casual, informal, or intuitively-based approaches to
documentary photography and field work. (Not to say that the latter do
not also have their rightful place, especially in the early phases of work.)
My experience with teaching the methodology discussed in this essayin
both full-length courses and shorter workshop formatstells me that stu-
dents take well to this approach. It allows documentary photography to be
integrated both theoretically and practically with other forms of qualitative
methodology and field work training and practice.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank colleagues and students who have commented on this
manuscript in its various stages of evolution. Special thanks are due to
Richard Chalfen, Steve Gold, students in my visual sociology courses and
workshops, and also the very helpful commentary and suggestions of the
anonymous reviewers who read earlier drafts of this manuscript.
ENDNOTES
1. This essay was first presented as a paper at the Annual Meeting of the International Visual
Sociology Association. July, 1995 al the University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
2. The standard methodological guides used by visual sociologists have been Collier and
Collier (1986); Wagner (1979) and Curry and Clark (1977) cited below In addition, the
occasional articles on methodology that have appeared in the journals Visual Sociology,
Visual Anthropology, and Studies in Visual Communication have also been influential.
3. Steve Gold (1994) provides an example of such a strategy in his photographic study of
Israeli immigrants. Gold also has discussed the use of what he terms "style scripts" different
photographic styles of work determined by such things as "composition, juxtaposition,
Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts S3
inclusion of text, framing, lens use, lighting, contrast etc..." See Gold (1995b) "Shooting
Scripts. Style Scripts and Photographic Depictions of Recent Immigrants In Los Angeles".
4. What I mean by a "significant frame," is a photograph that the researcher finds to be a
relevant response to the shooting script questions The danger lies in not providing some
labeling or description for frames and thus losing, in some cases, the potential meaning
that these may have later in the research process. The best practice is to log as many
frames as possible if not all frames.
5. Within the last few years, several software programs capable of incorporating photographs
with attached narrative descriptions have been made available. I am currently exploring
the advantages and potentialities of these technological additions and applications to
documentary photography.
6. A technical note on the photographs: The photos/negatives for this study were made with
three camera formats 6 x 7 cm roll film 4 x 5 in and 8 x 10 in sheet film sizes The larger
formats produced the kind of detailed images that ! feel are extremely helpful for
documenting material cultural artifacts The cameras were always outfitted with wide-angle
lensesthe equivalent of a 28 mm lens on a 35 mm camera format. Having been a
professional photographer before receiving the doctorate in sociology I was experienced
in the use of large-format photography, and advanced darkroom technique. The images
were all self-processed contact sheets made and final 11 x 14 in prints made (on Oriental
Seagull paper, grades 2 and 3) of selected images.
54 Suchar
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Grounding Visual Sociology Research in Shooting Scripts 55
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